As industry and the engineering arts have progressed, machines and devices have been created demanding increasingly closer tolerances in mating parts. One method of circumventing exceptionally tight tolerance requirements in these parts is to employ retaining rings. Retaining rings are compressed to fit inside a bored hole or cylinder, or expanded to fit around a shaft. Upon assembly the retaining rings create an interference fit between the mating parts at a reasonable cost. The most common method employed to install retaining rings involves using internal or external ring pliers to respectively expand or compress the retaining rings to fit in the required place.
Retaining ring pliers are currently available in a wide variety of styles and sizes, at a range of prices generally corresponding to the quality of material used in their construction. The pliers are usually made of stamped heat treated steel or of a forged material. The stamped pliers are less expensive but tend to be fragile and break easily. The forged pliers offer less breakage but are expensive.
Convertible pliers are also available in the industry. These pliers have removable jaws which may be interchanged to make the pliers work in different situations. This permits a single pair of pliers to be converted to perform multiple functions by simply removing the jaws and replacing them with a separate set of jaws. These pliers may be available with several separate sets of jaws, each specially suited to a separate and distinct application.
It would be desirable to develop a convertible style of retaining ring tools that is less expensive than premium steel forged tools, yet strong and with jaws that are easily replaceable and interchangeable between tool bodies.